Salt Lake has a year’s worth of 100-degree days with two months of summer left
Jul 15, 2024, 6:55 PM | Updated: 7:26 pm
USPS mail carrier Nancy Stevens fans herself with letters as she delivers mail in the afternoon heat in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 11, 2024. We're not even halfway through summer, and Salt Lake City has already reached it's yearly average of typical 100-degree days. (Brice Tucker, Deseret News)
(Brice Tucker, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY— We’re not even halfway through summer, and Salt Lake City has already clocked the number of 100-degree days seen typically in an entire year.
KSL Meteorologist Matt Johnson said that, on average, Salt Lake City will have nine days per year where temperatures are at least 100 degrees. This year, there have already been nine triple-digit days in Salt Lake.
After our latest 5 day stretch of triple digit weather, we now sit at 9 100 degree days on the summer. The avg amount for an entire summer is 9 days. More triples in the forecast too. #utwx pic.twitter.com/qRvwrWCfK2
— Matthew Johnson (@KSL_Matt) July 15, 2024
Johnson said 2018 was the last time Utah’s capital city had less than nine 100-degree days in a year. Since then, there have been at least ten per year.
Related: Excessive heat warnings issued throughout Utah as ‘heat dome’ arrives
In 2021, the city set a record for 100-degree days in one year. That year Utah’s capitol city had 21 triple-digit days.
Salt Lake City set a new record in 2022 with 34 100-degree days.
Excessive heat was still above average but calmed down in 2023. Last year, Salt Lake only had 13 100-degree days.
More 100-degree days = “the new normal”
Johnson said that from 1874 to 1994, Salt Lake averaged four triple-digit days per year. But in just the last 30 years that number more than doubled to nine days per year.
With how heat trends have gone since the turn of the century, Johnson said he’d consider these above-average years a, “new normal.”
“It’s definitely become more frequent and it’s just something we’re going to have to get used to,” Johnson said.
There is more heat still to come. The official last day of summer is September 22, but Johnson said the chance of triple-digit heat normally ends earlier in the month.
